Out in the Forty-Five Part 3

"She has two eyes so soft and brown, Take care!

She gives a side-glance and looks down,-- Beware! Beware!

Trust her not, She is fooling thee!"

LONGFELLOW.

Here they all are at last, and the house is as full as it will hold.

The Bracewells came first in their great family coach and four-- Charlotte and Amelia and a young friend whom they had with them. Her name is Cecilia Osborne, and she is such a genteel-looking girl! She moves about, not languidly like Amelia, but in such a graceful, airy way as I never saw. She has dark hair, nearly black, and brown eyes with a sort of tawny light in them,--large eyes which gleam out on you just when you are not expecting it, for she generally looks down. Amelia appears more listless and affected than ever by the side of her, and Charlotte's hoydenish romping seems worse and more vulgar.

The Drummonds did not come for nearly a week afterwards. I was rather afraid what Cecilia would think of them for I expected they would talk Scotch--I know Angus used to do--and Cecilia is from the South, and I thought she would be quite shocked. But I find they talk just as we do, only with a little Scots accent, as if they were walking over sandhills in their throats--as least that is how it sounds to me. Flora has rather more of it than Angus, but then her voice is so clear and soft that it sounds almost pretty. A young gentleman came with them, named Duncan Keith, who was going with Angus about that business he has to do.

They only stayed one night, didn't [Note 4.] Mr Keith and Angus, and then went on about their business; but Father was so pleased with Mr Keith, that he invited him to come back when Angus does, which will be in about three weeks or a month. So here we are, eight girls instead of four, with never a young man among us. Father says, when Angus and Mr Keith come back, we will have Ephraim Hebblethwaite and Ambrose Catterall to spend the evening, and perhaps Esther Langridge too. I don't feel quite sure that I should like Esther to come. She is not only as bad as Sophy with her "buts" and her "comes" but she does not behave quite genteelly in some other ways: and I don't want Cecilia Osborne to fancy that we are a set of vulgar creatures who do not know how to behave. I don't care half so much what Flora thinks.

Cecilia has not been here a fortnight, and yet I keep catching myself wondering what she will think about everything. It is not that I have made a friend of her: in fact, I am not sure that I quite like her. She seems to throw a sort of spell over me, does Cecilia, as if I were afraid of her and must obey her. I don't half like it.

My Aunt Kezia has put us into rooms in pairs, while they are here. In Sophy's chamber, where I generally sleep, are Sophy and Charlotte. In f.a.n.n.y's, which she and Hatty have when we are by ourselves, are f.a.n.n.y and Amelia. In the green spare chamber are Hatty and Cecilia; and in the blue one, Flora and me. My Aunt Kezia said she thought we should find that the pleasantest arrangement; but I do wish she had given Flora to Hatty, and put Cecilia with me. I am sure I should have understood Cecilia much better than Hatty, who will persist in calling her Cicely, which she says she does not like because it is such a vulgar name--and so common, too. Cecilia says she wishes she had not been called by a name which had a vulgar short one to it: she would like to have been either Camilla or Henrietta. She thinks my name sweetly pretty; but she wonders why we call Hester, Hatty, which she says is quite low and ugly, and hardly, is the proper short for Hester. She says Hatty and Gatty are properly short for Harriet, and Hester should be Essie, which is much prettier. But then we call Esther Langridge, Essie, and we could not do with two Essies. I know Father used to call Mamma, Gatty, but Grandmamma said she always thought it so vulgar.

Grandmamma was always talking about things being vulgar, and so is Cecilia. I notice that some people--for instance, my Aunt Kezia and Flora--never seem to think whether things are vulgar or not. Cecilia says that is because they are so vulgar they don't know it. I wonder if it be. But Cecilia says--she said I was not to repeat it, though--that my Aunt Kezia and Sophy are below vulgarity. When we were dressing one morning, I asked Flora what she thought. She is as genteel in her manners as Cecilia herself, only in quite a different way. Cecilia behaves as if she wanted you to notice how genteel she is. Flora is just herself: it seems to come natural to her, as if she never thought about it. So I asked Flora what she thought "vulgarity" meant, and if people could be below vulgarity.

"I should not think they could get below it," said she. "It is easy to get above it, if you only go the right way. How can you get below a thing which is down at the bottom?"

"But how would you do, Flora, not to be vulgar?"

"Learn good manners and then never think about them."

"But you must keep, up your company manners," said I.

"Why have any?" said she.

"What, always have one's company manners on!" cried I, "and be courtesying and bowing to one's sisters as if they were people one had never seen before?"

"Nay, those are ceremonies, not manners," said Flora. "By manners, I do not understand ceremonies, but just the way you behave to anybody at any time. It is not a ceremony to set a chair for a lame man, nor to shut a door lest the draught blow on a sick woman. It is not a ceremony to eat with a knife and fork, or to see that somebody else is comfortable before you make yourself so."

"Why, but that is just kindness!" cried I.

"What are manners but kindness?" said Flora. "Let a maiden only try to be as kind as she can to every creature of G.o.d, and she will not find much said in reproof of her manners."

"Are you always trying to be kind to everybody, Flora?"

"I hope so, Cary," she said, gravely.

"Flora, have you any friend?" said I. "I mean a particular friend--a girl friend like yourself."

"Yes," she said. "My chief friend is Annas Keith."

"Mr Duncan Keith's sister?"

"Yes," said Flora.

"Do tell me what she is like," said I.

"I am not sure that I could," said Flora. "And if I did, it would only be like looking at a map. Suppose somebody showed you a map of the British Isles, and put his finger on a little pink spot, and told you that was Selkirk. How much wiser would you be? You could not see the Yarrow and Ettrick, and breathe the caller air and gather the purple heather. And I don't think describing people is much better than to show places on a map. Such different things strike different people."

"How?" said I. "I don't see how they could, in the same face."

"As we were coming from Carlisle with Uncle Courtenay," said Flora, smiling, "I asked him to tell me what you were like, Cary."

"Well, what did Father say?" I said, and I felt very much amused.

"He said, 'Oh, a girl with a pale face and a lot of light thatch on it, with fine ways that she picked up in Carlisle.' But when I came to see you, I thought that if I had had to describe you, those were just the things I should not have mentioned."

"Come, then, describe me, Flora," said I, laughing. "What do you see?"

"I see two large, earnest-looking blue eyes," she said, "under a broad white forehead; eyes that look right at you; clear, honest eyes,--not-- at least, the sort of eyes I like to look at me. Then I see a small nose--"

"Let my nose alone, please," said I: "I know it turns up, and I don't want to hear you say so."

Flora laughed. "Very well; I will leave your nose alone. Underneath it, I see two small red lips, and a little forward chin; a rather self-willed little chin, if you please, Cary--and a good figure, which has learned to hold itself up and to walk gracefully. Will that do for a description?"

"Yes," I said, looking in the gla.s.s; "I suppose that is me."

"Is it, Cary? That may be all I see; but is it you? Why, it is only the morocco case that holds you. You are the jewel inside, and what that is, really and fully, I cannot see. G.o.d can see it; and you can see some of it. But I can see only what you choose to show me, or, now and then, what you cannot help showing me."

"Do you know that you are a very queer girl, Flora? Girls don't talk in that way. Cecilia Osborne told me yesterday she thought you a very curious girl indeed."

"I think my match might be found," said Flora, rather drily. "For one thing, Cary, you must remember I have had nothing to do with other girls except Annas Keith. Father and Angus have been my only companions; and a girl who has neither mother nor sisters perhaps gets out of girls'

ways in some respects."

"But you are not the only 'womankind,' as Father calls it, in the house?" said I.

"Oh, no, there is Helen Raeburn," answered Flora: "but she is an old woman, and she is not in my station. She would not teach me girls'

ways."

"Then who taught you manners, Flora?"

"Oh, Father saw to all that Helen could not," she said. "Helen could teach me common decencies, of course; such as not to eat with my fingers, and to shake hands, and so forth: but the little niceties of ladylike behaviour that were beyond her--Father saw to those."

"Well, I think you have very pleasant manners, Flora. I only wish you were not quite so grave."

"Thank you for the compliment, Miss Caroline Courtenay," said Flora, dropping me a courtesy. "I would rather be too grave than too giddy."

That very afternoon, Cecilia Osborne asked me to walk up the Scar with her. Somehow, when she asks you to do a thing, you feel as if you must do it. I do not like that sort of enchanted feeling at all. However, I fetched my hood and scarf, and away we went. We climbed up the Scar without much talk--in fact, it is rather too steep for that: but when we got to the top, Cecilia proposed to sit down on the bank. It was a beautiful day, and quite warm for the time of the year. So down we sat, and Cecilia pulled her sacque carefully on one side, that it should not get spoiled--she was very charmingly dressed in a sacque of purple lutestring, with such a pretty bonnet, of red velvet with a gold pompoon in front--and then she began to talk, as if she had come for that, and I believe she had. It was not long before I felt pretty sure that she had brought me there to pump me.

"How long have you known Miss Drummond?" she began.

"Well, all my life, in a fashion," I said; "but it is nearly ten years since we met."

"Ten years is a good deal of your life, is it not?" said Cecilia, darting at me one of those side-glances from her tawny eyes.

I tried to do it last night, and made my eyes feel so queer that I was not sure they would get right by morning.